Far from convincing

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s defence of his Government resorting to allocation of coal blocks for captive mining, sans any competitive bidding, cuts very little ice. In his statement in Parliament, Singh has held that the blocks were awarded only after inviting applications through open advertisements. But that still does not explain how, in one particular case, out of 69 applicants, only 36 were selected to make presentations before an inter-ministerial Screening Committee, which then allocated the block to two parties.

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